This morning, when we got up it was very cold, only 1 degree F, which is 31 degrees below freezing. There was white crystal ice on all the trees. After the sun came up, it was still very foggy outside but there seemed to be a lot of birds flitting in and out of the fog.
When the fog cleared away a bit, we noticed that there seemed to be a current of warmer water (by which we mean warmer than the surrounding lake water) at the mouth of Hoisington Book, and any where else on the water there was a thin layer of ice.
The kinds of birds we observed include:
- gulls (hundreds of them)
- loons
- crows
- chickadees
- geese
- ducks
- sparrows
Gulls (notice that some of the gulls out there on the water are standing up):
Loons: UPDATE: After looking more at the guides we think those were mergansers.
closeup:
Crow:
We just discovered that we can report these bird sightings on the Audubon Society website.